Starting Dropshipping with AliExpress

[MikeAus]

I am quick to share with you my stats for September:

Total income: $733,55
Supplier costs: $279,32
Affiliate commission: $13,17
Net profit: $467,40

Top 3 countries people purchased from:
United States
Germany
United Kindom

Best product of the month (7 items sold) - Hermione Granger Rotating Time Turner Necklace Gold Hourglass - free shipping worldwide

I think not bad for beginning, especially considering the fact that I did not spend anything on paid advertising in September. Most purchases came from organic and social media traffic.

This month I am going to try PPC, craiglist, paid FB ads and crowd marketing and share these startegies with you. And I have decided to develop another webstore for another niche. Starting designing a new theme for it right now.

 

[MikeAus]

I would like to share with you my FB advertising campaign strategy.

To launch paid ads on FB for my Harry site I use Power Editor instead of using a regular FB tools that has some limitations.

Importnat: Power Editor works only with Google Chrome. To open this tool you need to go to Log into Facebook | Facebook or use a necessary tab on FB ads manager:

As soon as you enter Power Editor, click ‘Download to Power Editor’ in order to add accounts you need to get access for:

To create a campaign, click the following button:

Then you need to name the campaign, set objective (choose ‘Clicks to website’) and give titles to your ads group and ads:

Then we need to edit our campaign on a group and ads level where we should set targets, budget and create texts.

For my Harry site I use the type of ads which can include several images and links.

In ‘Create Ad tab’ I select ‘Ad with multiply images in a carousel’.

Then I start creating my ads loading them with titles, descriptions, prices and images.

Important: as my experience shows, people mostly buy from desktop devices, that’s why I remove the option to show my ads on mobile gadgets:

Targeting:

Before creating my ads on FB I went to https://www.google.com/trends/ and found the countries where the ‘Harry Potter’ keyword is extremely popular.

Then I added all possible keywords associated with Harry Potter niche.

Lastly, I set age range from 18 to 65+:

Budget:

For this type of ads (like Carousel), ‘Daily Budget’ option is the best. My daily budget is $5:

My advertising campaign started on the 7th of October and will end on 31st of October:

With such budget and settings mentioned above, I get following results:
- Clicks – 241 daily on average
- Cost per click - $0.02!

I have already got some good results from this campaign. For example, today I got an order from Mexico generated by this Facebook adverstising campaign:

 

[MikeAus]

People often ask me about how my ordering process works. So I decided to describe this process in a step-by-step way.

1. First, I get a notification on my email that an order was placed. And I get another notification from my PayPal account that I received payment.

2. I go to the WP admin area of my site to check Order Details page and find this recent order:

I see that this order includes 2 items for $9.99 + $11.99.

3. Using my affiliate links I go to these product pages on AliExpress and place orders stating shipping address of my customer. These affiliate links allow me earning 8% commission on every purchase.

ITEM #1

ITEM #2

4. After placing the order I get notifications from the seller about when he sends the product and its tracking ID. This information I pass to my client through email and apply different status for a particular order on my control panel:

RESULT:

Gross profit - $21.98
Supplier Expenses - $7.28
Affiliate commission - $0.58

NET PROFIT: $15.28.

 

[saapbaad]

People often ask me about how my ordering process works. So I decided to describe this process in a step-by-step way.

1. First, I get a notification on my email that an order was placed. And I get another notification from my PayPal account that I received payment.

2. I go to the WP admin area of my site to check Order Details page and find this recent order:

I see that this order includes 2 items for $9.99 + $11.99.

3. Using my affiliate links I go to these product pages on AliExpress and place orders stating shipping address of my customer. These affiliate links allow me earning 8% commission on every purchase.

ITEM #1

ITEM #2

4. After placing the order I get notifications from the seller about when he sends the product and its tracking ID. This information I pass to my client through email and apply different status for a particular order on my control panel:

RESULT:

Gross profit - $21.98
Supplier Expenses - $7.28
Affiliate commission - $0.58

NET PROFIT: $15.28.

Thanks for sharing, interesting read. How are you planning to scale this when you start receiving 500+ orders a day? It would take quite a bit of time to manually place each order for your customers - is there no way to tie directly into AliExpress?

 

[Vadym]

Herro, ferrow affiriates,

Did you ever think a chinese dick could be big enough for you to actually feel it in your rectum? Noone did - and then Aliexpress changed their cookie policy from 30days to session-based about a week ago.

DHgate's affiliate program is closed last I checked.

Amazonbrus and Ebrus for affiliate stuff now.

Mike - this is a really nice case study [no troll]. Too bad we can't move it to enlightened section where it should be cuz Mike would lose access to it trolol.

 

[MikeAus]

Thanks for sharing, interesting read. How are you planning to scale this when you start receiving 500+ orders a day? It would take quite a bit of time to manually place each order for your customers - is there no way to tie directly into AliExpress?

I have already hired a support manager for doing all this stuff while I am busy with building the next store.

 

[MikeAus]

I have got my first refund recently The customer did not like the quality of a t-shirt he got. He sent me the picture of this t-shirt and I must admit that the quality of this item is really poor.

As a result I sent him a full refund, opened a dispute with AliExpress seller and got a refund the next day!

I suppose, if you are selling not expensive products your AliExpress suppliers usually refund you quickly without having to return the items because they don't want the headache of disputes and receiving returns for relatively low value items. May be I could even give a partial refund to my customer.

 

[MikeAus]

I decided to try video ads on Facebook. Not sure if there is a sense to send traffic from such ads directly to a website. May be I should use some landing page... Any thoughts?

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQEWJrvyff8[/ame]

 

[MikeAus]

Last week I started testing Craiglist and other similar services and have already got several sales from this source. I think many of you are familiar with Craiglist, but for those who have not tried Craiglist yet, this small and easy to follow guide could be helpful.

1. Before starting posting ads on Craiglist I recommend using HideMe software. It allows choosing the IP address of the region where you want to post your ads.

2. Go to Craiglist.org and select a geographical location. In order to choose the best country or region I strongly recommend that you check Google Trends first to find out where your products (look by keywords) are mostly popular and demanded.

3. Then you should sign up or create a new account.

4. You can see the status of ads you have already published on your account page. Here you can also select a region for posting your next ads.

5. Choose the type of your ad on the next page.

6. Select category.

7. Enter contact and product information.

8. Insert image and publish.

Now your ad is ready. After publishing, it will be shown on Craiglist for the next 45 days. You can check your post following the link that will appear on the next page.

Here is how the post looks like:

Don’t forget to place a link to your site. It will be not an active link; however people use it to visit your site or product page.

It should be also noted that Craiglist is not the only service suited for posting such ads. I found another 4 good services that can give good traffic and sales. Besides, these services allow posting active links to your webstore.

Here is a full list:

1 craigslist: frederick jobs, apartments, personals, for sale, services, community, and events

2 http://www.locanto.com

3 Free Classifieds - Hoobly Classifieds

4 Free classifieds - backpage.com

5 UsedVictoria.com - Classifieds for Jobs, Rentals, Cars, Furniture and Free Stuff

If you are using Craiglist or similar services in your marketing strategy, please share your ideas and experience here!

 

[MikeAus]

My stats for October:

TRAFFIC

I got around 40% increase in traffic comparing to September stats.

INCOME

Total income: $933,25
Supplier costs: $389,11
Affiliate commission: $26,39
Net profit: $570,53 (+22% comparing to September)

Most of my sales were generated with the help of organic search and social media (not paid ads).

Top 3 countries people purchased from:
- United States
- India
- Mexico

In October I made two refunds. One of them is because of a poor quality of the item and another one because of long delivery time.

 

[MikeAus]

I am often asked what niche is better to choose for a dropshipping site. In my opinion it is better to find and choose a narrow niche. A broad niche might sound like a good idea and I do understand people who are dreaming about an authority website where you can put all products, but in practice, it can be very tough to get traffic and orders.

Some reasons to go narrow:

1. When you make a research going narrow you get a better understanding about what you are going to sell.
2. It’s easier to be a big fish in a small pond and it’s the fastest way to grow your business and credibility.
3. It’s easier to rank higher in a web search for particular search terms.
4. Due to your specialty people will be ready to come to you again and again because you are “the one” in their minds.
5. It is always easier to focus on one audience and plan your marketing strategies.

To get an idea about what I mean by a narrow niche, take look at this website I have created recently for my friend:

 

[MikeAus]

Recently I have tried a marketing strategy that I had not used before and found it very effective.

This strategy is called Instagram Shoutouts.

If you want your Instagram page to grow, then you need to gain exposure.

The quickest and most efficient way to do this is by collaborating with other your niche related pages, posting one of their pictures in return for them posting one of yours. This is what is called a Shoutout.

But I have a bit different strategy.

I go to Instagram and search for popular pages related to Harry Potter niche. After finding such pages I send a message to the owners asking them about the price for adding my post to their pages. If the prce is fair enough I send the materials I want to publish. As a result I gain exposure, my Instagram page is growing and what is more important, I get sales! (just got another one from these shoutouts)

So, I can definitely recommend this strategy, especially for such fan nichies like Harry Potter.

Below are screenshots of recently published shoutouts.

 

[golan]

Interesting. What a range more or less of these shoutouts price?

 

[MikeAus]

Interesting. What a range more or less of these shoutouts price?

I paid $25 for these two shoutouts. Already got 6 orders.

The price usually depends on the popularity of the page and amount of followers. Genenerally it varies from $5 to $30 per post.

 

[Brandon]

What is your profit vs cost on the shout outs?

 

[MikeAus]

What is your profit vs cost on the shout outs?

Shoutouts Results:

It was my first experience with Instagram shoutouts. I spent $29 on these two posts. They were published on the 11th of November and were live for 48 hours.

I got a good increase of traffic:

Orders: 7
Gross revenue: $173,69
Supplier costs: 89,91
Net profit: $83,78

$83,78 - $29 (spent on shoutouts) = $54,78.

Besides, I got many likes and followers on my Instagram account.

I think I could earn more if I have credit cards payment option connected to my site, because there were many users who dropped the checkout page.

 

[MikeAus]

Regarding FB ads, I also found that video ads on FB work better for me than regular text ads. And it should be noted that's sometimes it is not a great idea to send traffic from your FB video ads directly to your webstore, some landing page needed. I am using following strategy:

1. I write a small article and add it to the blog of my webstore.

Example: 5 Items True Hermione Granger Fans Wouldn

2. I create a small video and launch advertising campaign for Facebbok.

Example: https://www.facebook.com/1493637050927933/videos/1537460359878935/

3. Users whatch the video, visit the blog post and then go to place orders.

It works!

 

[Brandon]

That's some good ROI on the shout outs. Good work!

 

[MikeAus]

My stats for November (Best Month so far!):

TRAFFIC

I got around 8% increase in traffic comparing to October stats.

INCOME

Total income: $1489,67
Supplier costs: $609,12
Affiliate commission: $41,09
Net profit: $921,64 (+60% comparing to October)

Most of my sales were generated with the help of organic search and social media (not paid ads).

Top 3 countries people purchased from:
- United States
- Canada
- Australia

AND NO REFUNDS!

Good month!

 

[cheyingtan]

Hi Mike,

Congrat on your success with the website! And you have a really nice follow along post, I learned a lots from it, thanks!!

I am doing something similar with aliexpress plugin which I bought from codecanyon, so far Im very disappointed with the result that plugin pulls. The seller said they dont control the result as it is done by the Aliexpress API....

So my question is (if you dont mind), do u ever find some products that u can easily find it when u search in aliexpress.com itself, but when u try to search it with ur plugin through API, and it nowhere to find that exactly product? Its like its doesnt exist at all, and thats make me mad. Because I want to add only unique and hot selling products into my store, but i cant find it through the plugin. I wonder whether its the plugin that done terrible job or its the API has limitation?

Hope to hear your opinion and experience, thanks in advance!!